Tag Archives: Port Fishington

Memphis Taproom Thirstoberfest!

It was amaz­ing! Beau­ti­ful weath­er goes per­fect­ly with great beer and peo­ple. Had a lot of fun.

What did I drink? (Looks at list.) Keep in mind they were 6 oz. cups. Oth­er­wise I’d prob­a­bly still be lay­ing in the biergarten.

List­ed in no par­tic­u­lar order:

  • Alla­gash Confluence
  • Cig­ar City Maduro Brown Ale
  • Dog­fish Head Bitch­es Brew
  • Dog­fish Head Sai­son du Buff
  • Green Flask Le Freak
  • Har­poon Wet Hop
  • Ommegang Cup o’ Kyndnes
  • Sly Fox Keller Helles
  • Vic­to­ry Sai­son du Buff

Jesse cooked up some mar­velous food, too. I wolfed down his chou­croute gar­nie. What’s that. Think meat plate. It was Boudin blanc, ribs, pork bel­ly, kiel­basy, pota­toes and kraut. Hearty. Just what the doc­tor ordered.

Happy New Year!

Helen and I spent a qui­et evening in our neigh­bor­hood. We ate a deli­cious din­ner at Mem­phis Tap­room — short ribs on a seafood grits bed — and I had a flight of Gift of the Magi, Port San­ta’s Lit­tle Helper, and Nøgne Ø‘s God Jul. The beer was amaz­ing as well. Our sec­ond New Year’s Eve din­ner was just as great as our first.

We can’t say enough how much we love that place and the peo­ple who work there. It’s like an exten­sion of our liv­ing room and kitchen. It’s our Cheers. We get great ser­vice, great food, and great beer. It’s hard to believe it’s been open less than two years. It feels like it’s been there forever.

We spent the rest of the evening at home, watch­ing movies, drink­ing beer, wait­ing for Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest to count down to the New Year. It’s a minor mir­a­cle that Helen and I were able to stay awake to see the ball drop. Char­lie’s usu­al­ly wak­ing us by 4:30 in the morning!

The start of 2010 was much more com­fort­able than where we found our­selves on Y2K. As Helen and I sat on the couch, watch­ing tele­vi­sion, I could­n’t help but think how lost we were last year after we board­ed the R5 in the wrong direc­tion, jumped off at Wayne Junc­tion, and found our­selves strand­ed there until Helen’s aunt and uncle picked us up. We did­n’t even have cell­phones back then!

To add insult to injury, we end­ed up there after going to see G. Love at the Elec­tric Fac­to­ry. No fur­ther com­ment necessary.

As we start 2010, we’re thank­ful for our friends and fam­i­ly who’ve been there for us all along. We feel very lucky in these try­ing times. Here’s to a great 2010 and the decade ahead!

Dogfish Head Simul-cask @ Memphis Taproom

Last Thurs­day was a ban­ner night for this beer lover. I met my friend Adam and we strolled on over to Mem­phis Tap­room to enjoy a great Dog­fish Head stunt tap­ping for their 75 Minute IPA. We got there a lit­tle ear­ly think­ing we might have to twid­dle our thumbs for a minute before they tapped the cask, but no, we were just in time to knock down a few pints of this great IPA.The 75 Minute IPA blends their trade­mark 60 and 90 Minute IPAs, result­ing in a remark­ably smooth IPA that will still knock you flat if you’re not careful.

Adam and I end­ed up hav­ing a won­der­ful con­ver­sa­tion with my friend Der­rick, anoth­er Mem­phis Tap reg­u­lar and ama­teur beer afi­ciona­do like myself. We dis­cussed the mer­its of Dog­fish Head­’s approach to brew­ing and how great it is to be sand­wiched between so many great brew­eries, all of which are doing dif­fer­ent, dis­tinc­tive things. Dog­fish Head real­ly does a great job of brew­ing sig­na­ture IPAs, com­ple­ment­ed nice­ly by great sea­son­als. I think their spring and sum­mer beers, both of which fea­ture great fruit fla­vors, are among the most refresh­ing I drink, with­out being sick­en­ing­ly sweet.

As an aside, I want­ed to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to men­tion Jay Hin­man’s great beer blog, Hedo­nist Beer Jive. Some of you may rec­og­nize Jay from his leg­endary music blog, Agony Short­hand. Now, instead of debat­ing issues of race with Black to Comm, he’s telling you why he won’t pony up for expen­sive bombers of Russ­ian Riv­er Con­se­cra­tion (and I don’t blame him!) Jay’s always been a great read, and his beer writ­ing is just as fun and engag­ing as his music writ­ing ever was.

Food: It’s All Good in the ‘Hood

When Helen and I left our Mum­mer’s Row apart­ment for our house here on Let­ter­ly St. in Decem­ber 2006, it was a sad affair. We left behind a deli­cious world of Ital­ian bak­eries and restau­rants, as well as some great sand­wich­es, too, for a new neigh­bor­hood where the most obvi­ous food options were Jovan’s Place, a quaint Yugoslav restau­rant around the cor­ner, and Key Foods Piz­za across the street. It pains me to tell you that one evening we were so des­per­ate for din­ner we got take­out from — gasp — Apple­bee’s. It was prob­a­bly our culi­nary rock bottom.

But there was light at the end of the tun­nel. In the two years we’ve lived up here we’ve found some great food, whether it’s Mem­phis Tap­room around the cor­ner when we’re just look­ing for a quick bite and some­thing to drink, or Bistro Juliana for the delight­ful Ital­ian food we loved so much in our old neigh­bor­hood. But that’s not all! I recent­ly made an ear­ly morn­ing run to Czer­w’s on Tilton St. for sev­er­al pounds of smoked kiel­basa and fresh-made piero­gies. If there is a heav­en, I hope it smells like Czer­w’s. There’s great Mex­i­can at Las Cazue­las, or quick Mex­i­can at Taco Rien­do. We’ve even found some decent piz­za, hav­ing recent­ly tried San­tuc­ci’s upside-down square pie. Now we feel like we have more options than we ever did back in old Pennsport.

We’re not alone. Our neigh­bor­hood has recent­ly been a new focal point in local cui­sine, fea­tur­ing both new­com­ers and old. The amaz­ing Rick Nichols recent­ly ven­tured up Rich­mond St. in Port Rich­mond, high­light­ing all the won­de­ful Pol­ish food the neigh­bor­hood offers. Think that sounds deli­cious? Then you should spend a Sat­ur­day after­noon with him on his Edi­ble World Food Tour that’s being orga­nized by First Per­son Arts! (I’ll add that you should check out the oth­er New Wave Cafe up on Alleghe­ny Avenue for a few rounds of strong Pol­ish beer and more than your fair share of kiel­basa and pierogies.)

Metro con­trib­u­tor and Foo­booz writer Arthur Etchells also reps for our ‘hood in his recent arti­cle, “Riv­er Ward Steps Up.” He talks about some of the restau­rants I men­tioned above, as well as The Pick­led Heron, a restau­rant that will bring fin­er din­ing to Frank­ford Avenue lat­er this spring. They also hope to take part in Riv­er Ward Restau­rant Week! That’s real­ly excit­ing, espe­cial­ly since there was some spec­u­la­tion about whether or not they would still be open­ing as the econ­o­my took the plunge. I can’t wait to try their menu!

When our friends Rick and Grace recent­ly moved up to Let­ter­ly St. just two doors up the block, we assured them it was a great neigh­bor­hood that we’d been beta-test­ing for over two years. It’s a great area that blends old favorites like Jovan’s Place and Mem­phis Tap­room. We have Greens­grow Farms and Philadel­phia Brew­ing Com­pa­ny around the cor­ner, too! Now when you think of Port Fish­ing­ton, think food!

Geeking Out at Memphis Taproom


Weyer­bach­er Fireside
Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ramsay

I met Kei­th Fitzger­ald at Mem­phis Tap­room last night to talk about blogs, apps, and all the oth­er fun geek stuff our wives tell us “sounds fun” as we walk out the door.

Our won­der­ful con­ver­sa­tion was aid­ed and abet­ted by some deli­cious beer as the No Repeat Beer Week rolls on! I start­ed the night with a smoky Weyer­bach­er Fire­side (pic­tured) before delv­ing into a bunch of beefy IPAs. Here’s last night’s list:

I took it easy since it was a school night, but I can assure you I had no dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting up this morn­ing for a quick three-mile run.

Our con­ver­sa­tion end­ed with an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion about how RSS is the blood cours­ing through the veins of the Inter­net, yet we still find our­selves join­ing every known social media plat­form that comes down the pike. Isn’t RSS sup­posed to make our lives real­ly simple?

Speak­ing of which, we also chat­ted about Pitch­fork’s head­scratch­er of a redesign. It remind­ed me of Paper Thin Walls after it was redesigned and made ready for a social net­work that nev­er took off. Ouch. I told Kei­th that Pitch­fork should’ve looked to ESPN.com’s redesign and focused on their video pro­duc­tion. Why they’re still mar­ried to the con­cept of a music webzine escapes me.

Kei­th also shared his pet project with me: a run­ning app for the 3G iPhone that should blow Map­MyRun and its ilk out of the water. I’m con­sid­er­ing buy­ing a new iPhone just to beta test it against my Garmin watch. It sounds great for begin­ners and advanced run­ners alike. There’s a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for an iPhone app like this to meet the needs of Garmin cus­tomers who’re still wait­ing for Garmin to roll out their Mac features.

It was a great night for geek­ing out on beer and the Inter­net. I’m look­ing for­ward to work­ing with Kei­th on tweak­ing and adding fea­tures to Kens­ing­ton Blues over the next few weeks. To that end, can any­one rec­om­mend a clean, free, 2‑column Word­Press theme?